Putting an array into one mysql table element

[seanoseanohay]

Alright guys,
Here is my problem. I have a table with a player's city's info in it. This is a pretty long table already and it still needs to store info on the level of each bank and each mine the player has. there will be slots for maybe 5 mines and 5 banks so I do not want to make 10 new elements. Is there a way to fit all the info into just 2 elements? Like an array mines[5] that has the level of each mine and banks[5] that has the level of each bank.

Otherwise I just make mine1, mine2, mine3,...,ect.

[hallsofvallhalla]

yeah use substr(), you can cut out characters from a string. It is how I turned a 208 field map system into 13 fields.

You create the string and divide each variable by a certain amount of numbers or a character, you then cut out the variable you need by using a dynamic variable that points to your array place.

Example mine 1 has 150 gold, mine 2 has 25, mine 3 100 gold, you want mine 2's gold amount
$minegold = 150025100

$j = 2 + 1 /////////string starts with 0, so need to add one...

$mine = substr($minegold, $j, 3);

$mine will equal 025......

[seanoseanohay]

Sweet!!

I think this is exactly what I need. Thanks

[Falken]

Although try avoid using too much strings. String modification is often slower than an extra row in the database. Not always, but often...

[MAruz]

Sounds like you should start looking into splitting that table up into several smaller ones though. Might be allot of work, but you might need to at some point anyways...

[seanoseanohay]

I think Halls way is going to be best here. I thought about just doing a bunch of new cells, but it would be like 40 new cells (one for each building plot in the city). So that is just a 142 long int (2 spots per number to tell what type of building, 2 to show the level) which is much easier...also I think this is going to make it easier to send commands that will modify the city. Instead of specifiying which cell needs to change at a certain time the big number will just change.